POLITICAL DIARY

New Delhi, 26 September 2009

Uske Paas Ma Hai

DYNASTY COMES FIRST

By Poonam I Kaushish

“What’s your pedigree?”asked the Party leader . “Excuse me, I’m not a dog but a ticket-aspirant,” replied the guy. “I know but what’s your lineage, I mean is someone in your family a Minister, MP, MLA ?” queried the neta. “No. You’ve got my resume I am an aam aadmi who wants to do something for other aam aadmis via politics.” “Sorry, you don’t make the grade,” pat came the reply. Welcome to the asli world of politics: dynasty rules the roost, and how! Literally and figuratively. No matter that the spoil-sports crib about rajniti going to the dogs!

What’s new? Dynasty is all pervasive, election after election. However, this time round, the Congress has surpassed even its own feudal standards in the forthcoming Maharashtra Assembly polls. By giving the Amrawati MLA ticket to President Pratibha Patil son Rajinder Shekhawat, over-turning popular two-term MLA and State Minister Deshmukh’s renomination and to Union Power and Heavy Industy Minister Shinde and Deshmukh’s daughter and son respectively. Further sullying its hands in the filial feudal pot.

Forget the raised eyebrows, the murmurs of gross favouritism and maintaining Constitutional niceties. Scandalously, the President has over-stepped Constitutional propriety by reportedly ‘pressurising’ Messers Sonia & Co to cede to her request. Thereby trashing popular perception that the President is above petty, partisan and parochial politics. Propriety demands certain sacrifices. Indeed, a sad state of affairs that the First Citizen has been dragged into an avoidable controversy and set a wrong setting a precedent. Leading to sniggers and SMS campaighns : Uske (Shekhawat) Paas Ma Hai! Which encapsulates Congress’s most cherished and favourite truism: Meri Dynasty Mahan.

True, in a democracy there is bar on anyone contesting for elections even if he is the President’s son. Shekawat is correct when he asserts, “Judge me as an individual and not as the son of the President of India." But the fact is that had it not been for a gentle push from Raisina Hill he would be nowhere in the reckoning, having failed to get even a single nomination since 1999.

Arguably, former President VV Giri’s son too was an MP so why not Shekhawat? But do two wrongs make a right. Is it mandatory that a bad precedent should become the norm? Can the future be prisoner of a wrong past? Strictly speaking, Shekhawat has done a great disservice to his mother and the Presidential office of neutrality.

Tragically, given our current moribund Party-system with its dynastic partisan exigencies, holding internal elections and drawing fresh blood borders on utopic fantasies. Which rubbishes Congress’s Yuvraaj Rahul’s brave attempts to usher in a new inclusive and democratic breeze in the tightly oligarchic Grand Dame of Politics. Remember his refreshing confession, “I would not have been here, if I was not from a political family. If you do not have money, a family or friends, you cannot enter politics."

Raising a moot point: Is Rahul a family heirloom to be showcased to air his perestroika views when the situation demands? Only to recede into hibernation when dynastic issues get sticky under the collar. Wherein  sons and daughters and even sons-in-law become an integral part of statecraft – leading to new rules, guidelines and extra-Constitutional centres of power?

Sadly yes. Why blame the Congress alone? All are bitten by the ‘parivaar’ bug. Convinced that ideology-based democracy comes after hereditary feudalism. The BJP is the latest entrant with its spanking new acronym: Bachha Janata Party. See how Maharashtra strongman Gopinath Munde (late Promod Mahajan’s brother-in-law) has wrestled four Party MLA nominations for his beti-bhanja-bhanji and bhai’s damad.

As for the regional parties the less said the better. Today DMK’s patriarch Karunanidhi is worried about which son he should succeed him as Tamil  Nadu  Chief Minister rather than the Dravidian cause. What nags Samajwadi’s Mulayam is how to make son Akhilesh UP’s Chief Minister or at least a Central Minister rather than his commitment to Yadav upward mobility. The only thing that drives MNS’s Raj Thackeray is revenge and one-upmanship over uncle Bal and cousin Udhav than protecting Maharashtrian pride.

The rest make no bones about being family enterprises. Be it Lalu-Rabri’s RJD which stands for Pati, Patni aur Parivar, Deve Gowda’s JD(S), Chautala’s INLD and Farooq Abdullah’s NC should really be known as Pita-Putra Saakar. And Sharad Pawar’s  NCP and Mufti’s PDP as Pita-Putri Saakshi. Underscoring as never before that not only is our political system weak, worse it is dominated by microcosmic monarchies comprising individuals rather than strong political institutions.

What is about dynasty’s that attract people to it? One, given that a majority of our electorate is angootha chaap, people relate to a neta more than the Party. The election of a ‘Party defector’ bears this out. Two, what’s wrong in capitalizing on the family brand and provide a ready field to the santaan to continue the legacy?

Indeed ironic considering that while the world's largest democracy rests on the one-man-one-vote principle, a level-playing field and equal opportunities for all, elections are all about one family and as many tickets as you can wangle norm. Sadly, politics has degenerated to I, me, and myself and is bereft of ideology.

Leading to a situation where most Parties are now subservient to one supreme leader. He or she can therefore wilfully impose their offspring on the Party. All you got to possess is a big and famous name, no prior experience in governance and one can aspire to be the one calling the shots in a party. Constituencies are handed over as a jagir is handed over to the heirs. All refusing to sever the hierarchical ties.

This is today’s shameless political culture. Wherein families, even extended ones, invoke the dynastic Gods. Modern day geneticists could learn a lesson or two from our politicians, who are past masters in this science.  It’s all in the genes, remember. Alas, all this is done at the expense of better and deserving candidates.  Committed Party workers and those who have been good Samaritans have been left out in the cold.  It’s all about bhaichara.  Said a leader, " India is a democracy of dynasties , for dynasties and by dynasties"

What next?  For starters the parties need to realize that "dynasty" is a sword that cuts both ways. The feudal factor is proving to be more of a liability than an asset. Plainly, as the aam janata’s awareness of their rights increases, it would be politically prudent to hoot for democracy over dynasty.

It needs to be remembered that the best political systems are based on holding free,  fair and regular party elections. It is to the credit of Congress’s Rahul Gandhi that he has begun this experiment in the Party’s student and youth orgianisations.  There is no gainsaying that without inner-party democracy, electoral democracy is itself corrupted and corroded.

Logically, if a Party’s focus is the future of the leader’s progeny, how can it efficiently fulfill the mundane tasks of administration when in power, or provide a credible Opposition when out of power? If not stopped now, the day will come when Parliament that houses the aspirations and hopes of a billion plus aam aadmis, will becomes the most coveted Power Corporation exclusively meant and run by highly-pedigreed families?

Needless to say in the long run, short-term hereditary gains would sound the death-knell of the Indian polity.  The time has come to uphold true democracy. Or else continue to wallow in the political cesspool which hails the rising family ---- and my hereditary India. Should we say goodbye to democracy? Choice is yours! —INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)